Ace returns to Perivale to visit her friends, only to find many of them
have gone missing. The Doctor discovers that they have been abducted to an
alien planet by a race called the Cheetah People. Pursuing them, the time
travellers find the Cheetah People are being controlled by the Master, who
is trapped on the planet, and is slowly turning into a Cheetah Person
himself. The Doctor must find a way off the planet, before they all
succumb to the dying world's savage influence.

Production

Scots writer Rona Munro had contributed plays for programmes such as
The Play On One as well as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival when she
was accepted to the BBC's writer's training course. There she met
Doctor Who script editor Andrew Cartmel, who was appearing as a
guest lecturer. Munro told him that she was eager to write for the show,
which she had enjoyed in her youth. Cartmel encouraged her to send him
some of her material; this included a play about babysitters which he
liked very much. On this basis, he asked Munro to develop ideas for
Doctor Who.

Munro's proposal was cheekily titled “Cat-Flap”, and drew on
her interest in pagan imagery, such as the association of cats with women
in the mystic tradition. To this notion Munro was asked to add the
Master, who had not appeared since The Trial Of A
Time Lord (Segment Four) in 1986. The writer fondly recalled Roger
Delgado's portrayal of the villain, and was happy to include him in her
storyline. Cartmel did not feel that the “Cat-Flap” title was
appropriate, and so when the first episode was commissioned on November
16th, 1988 it was referred to as “Blood-Hunt”. The adventure
was eyed for the three-part, location-only slot for Season
Twenty-Six; the final two installments were contracted on January 11th,
1989.

Originally Ace burned Karra's body on a funeral pyre,
continuing the theme of her pyromania

Several changes were made to “Blood-Hunt” as Munro developed
her scripts. Paterson was originally a police officer, in which capacity
he investigated complaints about the Doctor's behaviour. He instead became
a retired army sergeant because the production office was concerned about
the connotations of Paterson's violent behaviour. Ace was to burn
Karra's body on a funeral pyre, continuing the theme of her pyromania as
suggested by her fascination with Nitro Nine, and made explicit in
another Season Twenty-Six story, Ghost
Light, in which Ace was revealed to have burned down an old
mansion. The motorcycle duel between the Doctor and Midge was to have
taken place in a disused lot or building site (hence the incongruous
appearance of the rubbish on which the Doctor lands), and Midge was
originally kicked to death by the other boys. In addition, there was a
scene in which the Doctor tried to stuff a large gold coin into Ange's
donations tin. He finally got the coin to drop by tapping it with one
finger -- which was meant to foreshadow the Doctor's later subdual of
Paterson in a similar fashion.

Cartmel also wanted “Blood-Hunt”, intended to be the Season
Twenty-Six finale, to advance his overarching plans to reimagine the
Doctor's background. He had a long-term design to reveal that the Doctor
had a connection to the ancient Time Lords such as Rassilon and Omega,
and the confrontation with the Master presented an opportunity to
explore this further. Nathan-Turner was more cautious about Cartmel's
ideas, and instructed his script editor to keep such hints vague. With
this in mind, at the story's end Munro originally had the Master return
to Earth with the Doctor, whom he no longer believed to be a Time Lord.
In keeping with the “survival of the fittest” theme of
“Blood-Hunt”, the Doctor then responded that he had
“evolved” and indeed was not “just” a Time Lord.
The Master then escaped using a Kitling which was lurking nearby.
However, Nathan-Turner still felt that this dialogue was too explicit,
and it was dropped at a very late stage.

Around April, Munro's adventure became known as “The Survival”
and finally just Survival. It would be made as Serial 7P in
conjunction with Serial 7Q, the studiobound Ghost
Light, under director Alan Wareing. Wareing had previously worked
on The Greatest Show In The Galaxy the year
before. Anthony Ainley agreed to reprise his role as the Master; he had
been contracted on February 14th. Cast as Karra was Lisa Bowerman, who had
formerly been a regular on Casualty. Although this was Bowerman's
first Doctor Who role, her association with the programme would
become much stronger in 1998 when she became the voice of the Doctor's
companion Bernice Summerfield, who had been created for the Doctor Who:
The New Adventures line of novels from Virgin Publishing, and was
then brought to life on audio by Big Finish Productions. Bowerman would
also direct numerous plays for Big Finish.

Rona Munro had conceived the Cheetah People as being
basically human, with cat-like eyes and fangs

A major concern in pre-production was the appearance of the Cheetah
People. Munro had originally conceived them as being basically human, with
cat-like eyes and fangs, and perhaps a vaguely feline mouth. To this was
later added a light fur coat and claws. However, make-up designer Joan
Stribling interpreted their appearance much more literally. Despite the
implementation of some changes at the behest of Wareing and Nathan-Turner,
the cast and crew were still dismayed by the final result. Also
disappointing was the animatronic Kitling. Although BBC Visual Effects was
confident that they could develop a workable prop -- having already
constructed an animatronic dog -- they were hampered by the small size of
the Kitling and the need for realism.

The previous story into production, Battlefield, had been hampered by labour action
taken against the BBC by the Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades
Alliance. The prolonged dispute also affected Survival, which lost
part of a rehearsal day as a result. Nonetheless, recording began as
planned on June 10th, the first of four days in the Greater London area
which were principally spent in the suburb of Perivale, Middlesex as in
the scripts. The 10th saw the recording of the scene with the milkman on
Medway Drive, after which a block of flats on Medway Parade served as
Midge's home.

Joining the Doctor Who team on June 11th was the comedy duo of
Gareth Hale and Norman Pace, playing merchants Len and Harvey respectively
(an exchange of the roles for which they were originally cast). The
exterior of their shop was Drayton Court Public House in London proper,
while the interior was Londis Food Market back in Perivale. Later that
day, the motorcycle dealership was Motor Cycles Unlimited, while the
Doctor and Ace met Ange outside Sceptre Financial Services. On the 12th,
the playground was Ealing Central Sports Ground. Various street scenes
were filmed this day and the next on Colwyn Avenue, Bleasdale Avenue and
Woodhouse Avenue. The black cats hired to play the Kitlings in long shot
were uncooperative; indeed, at one point on the 13th, the production team
accepted a young neighbourhood boy's offer to use his pet instead, since
it proved to be more accommodating!

When the black cats hired to play the Kitlings were
uncooperative, a neighbourhood pet proved to be more accommodating

On June 14th, the EYJ Martial Arts Centre in Sudbury Hill, Middlesex posed
as the youth club. Then it was back to Perivale on the 15th for the
sequences in the wasteground, recorded at Horsendon Hill. When preparing
for the game of “chicken”, stuntman Tip Tipping was assigned
to double for Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor, while champion motorcyclist
Eddie Kidd would do likewise for Will Barton as Midge. Despite his
pedigree, however, Kidd was only a trainee stuntman, and Tipping felt that
he should not be used. Nathan-Turner overruled him; consequently, once
the stunt was completed, Tipping walked off the show, advising the
production team to donate his fee to the Children In Need
charity. Tipping was replaced by Paul Heasman for the rest of the
shoot.

The final location for Survival was Warmwell Quarry in Warmwell,
Dorset, for all of the scenes on the planet of the Cheetah People.
Recording there spanned June 18th to 23rd, during which the weather
became blazingly hot. Sophie Aldred suffered from dehydration, while an
extra playing a Cheetah Person at one point tore off her mask and declared
that she was finished for the day (whereupon she was immediately sacked).
The labour dispute was still unresolved, forcing an early end to filming
on the 20th. On the 23rd, word reached the cast and crew that another work
stoppage would occur that day -- a potential disaster given that it was
the last day of the shoot. However, the good weather meant that Wareing
was already ahead of schedule, and the team worked quickly to ensure
that everything was completed.

By this time, rumours were escalating that the BBC was not planning to
renew Doctor Who for its twenty-seventh season. Indeed, at Warmwell
Quarry, there was some discussion that the programme's cancellation was
already a fait accompli. Although the production team pressed ahead
with Ghost Light, the final story to go
before the cameras, it became clear during post-production on
Survival that Season Twenty-Seven would, at the very least, be
delayed. In many respects, Doctor Who was now an anachronism: for
the most part, the BBC no longer made half-hour dramas, science-fiction,
or programmes aimed at a family (rather than juvenile) audience, let
alone a show which attempted to be all of these things. It was not
viewed warmly by the Corporation's upper management, and it now also
seemed to have lost its audience, with Battlefield part one -- the season premiere,
broadcast on September 6th -- reaching an all-time low of only 3.1
million viewers. Furthermore, the BBC was increasingly relying on
independent production companies to create content, rather than
developing new programming in-house.

On September 11th, Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred were
informed that their options for Season 27 were not being taken up

As a result, on September 11th, Nathan-Turner informed McCoy and Aldred
that their contract options for Season Twenty-Seven were not being taken
up. While this did not mean that they had been fired from Doctor
Who, it did reflect the fact that the programme was in limbo, with no
start date for production on the next season having been set by the BBC.
With the likelihood now strong that Survival might turn out to be
the last Doctor Who story ever, Nathan-Turner asked Cartmel to
write additional dialogue for the Doctor, to be dubbed over the final shot
of episode three. This would serve as a capstone for the programme's
twenty-six-year run, while also alluding to the never-ending nature of
adventures in the TARDIS.

Survival was Munro's only Doctor Who story; her novelisation
was published by Target Books in 1990. She would go on to become an
award-winning playwright of works like The James Plays, and also
continued to write for television (such as Casualty and Screen
Two) and film (including Ladybird Ladybird and Oranges And
Sunshine). Meanwhile, Anthony Ainley had largely retired from
acting. He returned to play the Master one last time for the video game
Doctor Who: Destiny of the Doctors, released in 1998. Ainley passed
away following an illness on May 3rd, 2004.

Sylvester McCoy recorded the Doctor's new closing words on November 23rd
-- ironically, Doctor Who's twenty-sixth anniversary. Thirteen days
later, on December 6th, the Doctor's declaration to Ace that “we've
got work to do” appeared to draw the curtain on Doctor Who as
a television entity. But even as Season Twenty-Six concluded, there were
stirrings of life. Already, an American television executive and
longtime fan named Philip David Segal was already negotiating with the
BBC to forge a co-production agreement which would see Doctor Who
cross the Atlantic.

The broadcast of Survival
episode three on December 6th appeared to draw the curtain on Doctor Who as a television entity

And throughout the British entertainment industry, young men and women
who had grown up with a deep and abiding love for Doctor Who were
now forging careers of their own -- as writers and directors, in visual
effects and production design and so much more. One such fan, a writer and
script editor for On The Waterfront called Russell T Davies,
would soon embark on his first science-fiction project, to be broadcast
by the BBC in 1991 as Dark Season. Another,
schoolteacher-turned-writer Steven Moffat, had just launched the
children's programme Press Gang, which quickly developed a cult
following. In print, Virgin Publishing's Doctor Who: The New
Adventures range of original novels was about to nurture emerging
talents such as Paul Cornell and Mark Gatiss.

As the dying First Doctor so memorably put it during Doctor Who's
first true brush with mortality in 1966, it was far from being all
over...